Title page/ Summary

Javier Rivera

Mr. Whetstone

SSR quarter 2 project

11-23-2013

Sparknotes

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

Summary:

In the story, pet sematary, Louis creed, his wife, and his two kids, Gage and Ellie, move to a small town in Maine where Louis is taking up a position at the university of Maine student medical center as the head doctor and administrator. As they are moving in, they meet their neighbor, Jud Crandall, who warns them to keep their children away from the road due to the trucks always speeding past it, which will be important to keep in mind. Jud and Louis immediately form this bond with each other; having a beer on the porch every night and talking just as friends would do. A little after they start to get settled into their new home, Jud takes them along a path which leads to a pet sematary, spelled with an “s”, where all pets were buried after they died. Soon after this, Ellie starts to fear for her own cat, church, who could very much end up there at that pet sematary one day as well. Louis tries comforting her but soon begins conflict with his wife, Rachel, over her not wanting Louis explaining the concept of death to Ellie at “such a young age”. At his work soon after, Louis confronts a student injured by a collision with another vehicle, Victor Pascow, who soon passes away in front of Louis. Later that night, Victor's spirit leads him to the pet sematary in order to give him a warning; “don't go beyond, no matter how much you feel you need to-the barrier was not made to be broken”. When Louis wakes up the next morning, he shakes it off as a dream but is shocked to find dirt on his feet to indicate that he was outside the other night.

            After Rachel and the kids left to visit her parents in Chicago, Louis was at home watching her cat. As he was sleeping, the cat ran across the road and was hit by a truck late at night. Not wanting to explain this to Ellie, Louis realizes that he has no choice but to break the news to her somehow. Jud, who was very grateful of Louis for helping his wife with her heart attack, decides to repay Louis by taking him up to the pet sematary to bury his cat. He reveals to Louis that the sematary was an Indian burial ground and whatever is buried in the ground, will come back. Later on the next day, the cat returns only something was not quite right with it; it was more violent rather than cheerful, but he does not tell Ellie or his family. As a little bit of time passes, the family head out on a picnic. During the picnic, Gage wanders off and walks over the road. The family notice he’s gone and finally spots him on the road, but they couldn’t get to him in time; he was killed by a truck that was speeding on the road.

            During the funeral, much of the blame was directed towards Louis. Heartbroken and saddened by the loss of his son, Louis did not want to accept that his son was gone forever. Having witnessed the power of the burial ground, he decides to bury Gage in the sematary. Jud warns Louis and tells him he has to accept that Gage is gone forever just as Jud did when his wife passed away, but Louis ignores it. After Louis drops off Rachel and Ellie at the airport to go spend time with her family, he then re-buries Gage. Meanwhile, Rachel was returning to Maine because she was worried about Louis’ behavior and Ellie’s nightmares about him. Unaware of what Louis has done, she goes to Jud’s home to look for him, but, just like Jud, Gage killed her. Louis discovers the bodies and this basically sends him on a psychological breakdown. He killed Gage, and church as well, so he can put an end to all of this. However, after this was all over, he burned Jud’s house down and tries to bury his wife in the burial ground despite everything that has just happened. King is touching on the emotional factors connected to grief and the loss of a loved one which cause us to do just about anything to have them back. His wife soon returns to him as he is sitting in his kitchen and the story ends, but king describes her as “it” when she places her hand on Louis’ shoulder, which causes us to infer that Louis has made a fatal mistake.        

Character Analysis

Jud Crandall

           In the story, pet sematary, Jud is the Creed’s new neighbor and friend. Jud Crandall is the one who revealed to Louis the secret of the pet sematary; what you bury in that ground, comes back. This, in turn, reveals to us the lengths a person would go in order to bring back the ones they love because, after he suffered a great loss, Louis risked everything in order to get his son and his wife back. Jud is a much older character who is very friendly to the creeds. In a way, there seems to be a father son connection between Jud and Louis. Louis’ father passed away when he was a child and right when he met Jud he immediately grew this trust and attachment with him. They both are always there for each other and continue throughout the whole story to look out for one another. Jud told Louis of the pet sematary, but, as the story goes on, he soon regrets it. He starts to become wiser and knew that a secret like this would cause Louis to bring back actual people, rather than animals, if he had the chance.  The problem with that is when anything is buried in the ground, they come back evil. Trying to talk Louis out of ever burying his son in that cemetery, it is already too late and he knew that. He knew the extent a person would go to bring their loved ones back if they had the chance to. Jud has had little character development; however, he was an important character in setting up the story into one of its major themes; the inability to accept that death is forever.

Rachel Creed

Rachel Creed, Louis’ wife, can be described as a loving wife and mother to her children, but somewhat hypocritical. As Louis was explaining the concept of death to their daughter Ellie, since she was scared of church dying, Rachel becomes enraged. What he was trying to tell Ellie was that death is a very natural thing and happens to everyone one day, but Rachel felt that it was too short of a time to talk to her about that. To counter this, Louis states that she has talked to the kids about where babies come from and, just like birth, death is very natural. Rachel then angrily says that “there is nothing natural about [death]”. Rachel wants to show the kids things that they should know and things that are natural, yet for the very reason that she does not want to teach Ellie about death, makes her hypocritical in a sense. This example also helps to characterize Rachel Creed as someone who wants power and control over parenting due to her arguing over something that was not much of a big deal to start with. She wants things to be her way. Rachel creed hasn’t developed as a character throughout the story but she does help king assess the emotional aspect and effects of a loss on the entire family. She helps show the consequences of secrecy; a minor theme king links back to throughout some parts of the story.

Louis Creed

In the story, Louis creed is a loving father, good husband to his wife, and an average human being. He is the head doctor and administrator at the university of Maine student medical center. Louis is good father for the most part, but often loses his patience with Ellie which is ironic considering his career choice. He was somewhat able to grow more patience and a stronger bond with Ellie throughout the story, however, he can be characterized as selfish in some things he has done to affect her. After all the event leading up to his wife’s death and him having to kill Gage at the end of the story, he chose to bury his wife in the sematary completely ignoring everything that had just happened. Rather than living for his daughter, he chooses to sacrifice everything and leave her all alone in this world. Louis also felt solely responsible for the three deaths that occurred throughout the story; Church, Gage, and Rachel. This demonstrates the amount of guilt one can have when put into these situations which is crucial in assessing the emotions within the family when dealing with a loss. He went from a being someone who was supposed to protect the whole family, to someone who unintentionally destroys it by his inability to accept death.  The inability to accept it fuels him to carry out these tasks which, to many people, is very disrespectful to the dead and to the rest of their family. With these acts, Louis reveals to the reader the lengths people would cross, if they ever had the opportunity to bring their loved ones back to life.

Themes

1.      “Be able to accept death, no matter how difficult it may be. “

Throughout the story, Pet Sematary, Stephen King depicts his view of humanity through Louis creed, a character faced with difficult obstacles in his life that, when given the opportunity to do so, brings his loved ones back to life despite the fatal consequences. King’s message to the reader is that, though you may go through a difficult loss in your life, you must be able to let go and accept their death because no matter what you do, you can never bring your loved one back to life. The more you are stuck with not being able to cope with death, then the more likely you will be to not be able to function within the present (which results in irrational actions to put yourself in harm’s way). In the story, Louis couldn’t cope with cage’s death. He went through a series of grieving stages; guilt, anger, and sadness. As a father would do, he went through great lengths to get his son back. Despite multiple warnings not to bury his son into the pet semetary, he did it anyway. He was irrational and driven on not being able to cope and accept his son’s death. Since he buried his son in the pet semetary, his son came back; the only problem is it wasn’t really his son, but a demon in his son’s body.  No matter how hard he tries, he can never bring his son back to life. Once releasing this demon, it kills Louis’ wife and Jud; trusted friend and neighbor. One can say that this is just some ending which was put to scare the reader, but symbolically it holds so much more than that. The demon killing his wife and friend is the result of Louis not being able to cope with his son’s death. His own grief is affecting those around him and it’s just hurting his chances of ever moving on from this experience. Of course after he fixes everything, he decides to also bury his wife in the pet semetary despite all that has just happened. After a loss so great, the consequence wasn’t enough to convince him that whatever you put in the ground “isn’t what comes out”. This exemplifies the lengths one would go to bring back their loved ones. More importantly, it all comes back to king’s overall message to the reader; learn to accept death, because, if you are not able to accept it and move on, you’ll only be affecting the ones around you and not being able to think rationally. Life is essentially a game of chess; when you move without truly thinking about what you are doing, you lose. This metaphor works in Louis’ case as well; if he cannot move on from this experience, the results may be fatal due to him letting that same grief, destroy him emotionally and physically.

2.      “Keeping a secret, or even telling a lie, can bring terrible consequences”

            In the story, Pet Sematary, king touches on the consequences of telling secrets throughout a few of the scenes throughout the book, however, those parts clearly demonstrates king’s message to the reader; keeping something hidden, will only make matters worse. After church, Ellie’s cat, was run over by a truck, Louis buried him in the pet sematary to bring church back to life; a secret he keeps from not only Ellie, but his wife Rachel creed. Even after cage, his son, dies, he never told his wife that he buried him in the pet sematary. As he was waiting for cage to come back, Rachel was killed by the demon that possessed cage. This happened due to secrecy because had she known that it was dangerous to be around there, she wouldn’t have been in harm’s way. These effects demonstrate that you should never keep things hidden because there are consequences for doing so; a short theme that Stephen king touches upon throughout the story.

Important Quotes Explained

1.      “The steps ended directly behind him. Silence. A cold hand fell on Louis’s shoulder. Rachel’s voice was grating, full of dirt.

    ‘Darling,’ it said.” –Epilogue

Despite the warnings and everything that has happened, Louis buries his wife at the Indian burial ground. This demonstrates the state of mind someone is in after a loss of someone so important to them; doing something, without thinking. Louis was dealing with a lot of pain and that made it almost impossible to think rationally, so he did something irrational and dangerous. Also king’s use of pronouns for Rachel is very significant in this passage. Rather than using “she”, he uses “it”. This would mean that whatever is there, is not human and not his wife. This demonstrates what king has been trying to say throughout the whole novel; you can never truly bring your loved ones back to you, so the best thing you can do is move on for the ones that care for you deeply. That was a message that Louis never received earlier on.

2.      “What you buy is what you own, and sooner or later what you own will come back to you, Louis Creed thought. “-Epilogue

Louis is saying that you have a price to pay for everything you do, and someday those consequences will come back to you. Louis knows that there will be consequences, but it does not mean he is in regret. This passage shows irrationality mentally with people who have suffered a great loss. Rather than thinking rationally and having the ability to do all the necessary things to stop what he’s doing to protect his daughter, he does the complete opposite. This quote doesn’t just help to characterize Louis, but society has a whole after they have suffered a tragic loss that may have been hard to move on from.

3.      “Sometimes dead is better”

This quote leads us into Jud’s view on death. Unlike Louis, he accepts death and knows the effects of burying the dead in the pet semetary. He would rather remember them for what they did before they died, rather than what they do afterwards. Obviously because after they are brought back, they are evil beings set out to kill everything in their path. His view on view on bringing the dead back through the semetary is that he’d rather remember them for being something in good in life, rather than something evil after they are brought back.

4.      “Don’t go beyond, no matter how much you feel you need to, Doctor. The barrier was not made to be broken. Remember this: there is more power here than you know. It is old and always restless. Remember.” 

The spirit of Victor Pascow, a student who died in Louis’ office after getting hit by a car, came back, from the dead, to warn Louis about the dangers of the semetary. This quote’s purpose is meant to not only foreshadow something, but to give a warning. Obviously he knows something that Louis doesn’t, so he wants to make sure it’s not too late to possibly change what he is about to do. This quote also shows how despite the warnings given to  him by spirits, and even the warnings Jud had made, wasn't enough to change Louis’s decision to bury Gage there on the Indian burial ground in the first place because the only thing that matters to him is getting his family back. This quote helps support the author’s view on the lengths and extent people would go through, in order to have their loved ones back to them.